Congratulations to our holiday cookie contest winner, Jaeden Roberts! Our family devoured a batch of her gluten free Fruit & Spice Holiday Honey Bars at one of our holiday feasts. Delicious! They are easy to make and feed a finicky crowd.

What did she win? A brand new KitchenAid mixer. She chose a brilliant shade of red. Check out the picture below of Jaeden with her knew machine.

Words from our contest winner: Jaeden Roberts

“I have created this recipe to be seasonally adaptable, and to leave room for creative expression. Different fruits are available seasonally, and different spices mean ‘Holidays’ to different people. This recipe lets you follow your heart (or your grandmother’s heart, if that’s where tradition lies). The bars are light and moist, a bit like a cake, but hold up well as a finger food. They can be cut large or small, to serve as a full dessert, or as a party finger food. I served these at a party last week and they were a total hit. I hope you enjoy them.” – Jaeden Roberts

The Winning Recipe

The following recipe was copied from Jaeden’s submission.

Ingredients:
Fruit of your choice, enough to slice thinly (about 3/8 inch) and line the bottom of your pan. I used asian pears, but apples, figs, citrus, berries, etc would work.
300 g Flour Farm Flour (2 3/4 cups)
1/2 c almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ginger*
1 tsp cardamom seeds, crushed*
4 large eggs, room temp
1 cup honey
1/2 cup cane sugar
1 tsp orange zest
4 Tbsp buttermilk (or 3 Tbsp nut milk + 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar)
1/2 cup jam or preserves of your choice (I used cherry compote, but you could use marmalade, fig jam, apple butter, pear butter, cranberry relish – any fruit preserve of your choice)
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Confectioners sugar for dusting

*choose spices to compliment your choice of fruit and preserves – in addition to/in lieu of ginger and cardamom, you could use cinnamon, cloves, etc.

Method
Preheat oven to 350, and line a 10×14 baking pan with parchment paper. Lightly oil the parchment paper. Lay sliced fruit evenly over the bottom of the pan, and set aside.

Sift flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.

In your KitchenAid Mixer (or your sad, inferior, non-KitchenAid Mixer), beat the eggs, honey, sugar, and zest until fluffy and pale. Add the buttermilk (or nut milk+vinegar) and fruit preserves, and beat to combine. Continue mixing and drizzle in olive oil.

Fold dry ingredients into wet, and mix until just moistened. Do not over mix. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for at least one hour.

Put a cutting board (at least as large as the pan) over the top of the pan and invert. Lift pan off, remove parchment paper, and allow to “dry” a bit. Dust with confectioners sugar. Cut into bars or squares of your desired size.

Serve, and revel in the adoring delight of your guests. (Or hoard and portion them out to yourself, piece by delicious piece.)

Jaeden’s Pictures

Flour Farm Notes

We made this recipe as written and then made a few changes to meet the taste buds of our family. We chose pears as a base fruit, halved the amount of cardamon and used ground instead of crushed cardamon seeds, added cinnamon, substituted brown sugar, used blueberry preserves (1x) and cranberry preserves (1x), and avocado oil. We left out confectioners sugar. YUM!

Share

Let us know how it goes! We love to receive questions, comments and pictures. Simply leave a note at the bottom of this page in the space provided.

An important note: this recipe successfully uses Flour Farm Organic Gluten Free Flour Blend. This blend is found online at Amazon.com, Azure Standard or in a few local grocery stores. If you choose to make this with another flour blend, please note that your results may differ.

Peace & LOVE – Teri

P.S. Flour Farm gives back. We are committed to bringing healthy food to members of our community. If you are looking for replacement ingredients, please consider supporting Flour Farm and 2nd Harvest by clicking on this Amazon Associate link. We donate 50% of the profit made from Amazon purchases to 2nd Harvest, which is a local organization dedicated to feeding our children, our community and helping those in need. You will be sent directly to Amazon.com; we do not store any of your information. Thank you and share the love.

– Teri & Dave

For more sweet gluten free recipes by Flour Farm, click on this link!